Idle hardware browing leads me to Techradar’s coverage of Microsoft’s concept mouse project. Usually, attempts to redesign one of the most fundamental features of the PC is something I greet with a sneer – how can you be so stupid as to waste so much money on trying to replace the irreplaceable? When it’s Microsoft, though, for all their flaws it’s worth paying attention to.
Key to their research is multi-touch interfaces – of the sort seen on recent laptop touchpads or the iPhone’s screen. Fingers creating gesture-based combinations on smooth, switch-free surfaces, rather than simply clicking physical buttons. God knows if any of these things will ever come to pass, but at least they’re not trying to throw out the mouse’s essential mousiness.

Can you imagine gaming on one of these, pushing fingers against repogrammable surfaces, or is the absolute precision of a hard-wired button the only accurate way to shoot a dude in the face? Microsoft reckon traditional mice use only a fraction of our hands’ abilities – but is that an accident or a necessity for the amount of our awareness that is spent reacting in other ways to on-screen events?

In the case of the iPhone, I think you might be suffering from a case of the old man’s “Back in my day!” syndrome. That is, it only seems weird because you’re not used to it, but once you get used to it it not only isn’t that bad, but it adds a ton of versatility you just can’t get with traditional buttons.

I have to agree on the mouse front though. With the iPhone, unless you’re playing some kind of game or something, you really don’t need tactile feedback at all once you get used to it, especially because you’re always going to be looking at the screen, which is where your fingers are going to be anyway. I can’t imagine the same thing being true for a mouse, which is something you’re not looking at at all while playing, unless something’s gone wrong with it.

I think one thing to overcome might be the friction of a finger rubbing against glass. Mice are generally quite good at avoiding friction. I tried to play Unreal Tournament on a laptop trackpad once, and was laughably bad at it.

Of course it is, Stuk. I also happen to have my tastes and preferences that can be separate from the notion, not to mention that just because something tries to be innovative it doesn’t mean it actually hits the target.

I cant stand most touch based interfaces, they give me the creeps. I can hardly use my Ipod Nano without putting some piece of cloth between my finger and the thing. Is there anything wrong with buttons?

There was an exhibition of alternative input devices for computers like mice and keyboards at the Vancouver Art Gallery one year and some of them were amazing.

The one that stood out for me was a one-handed keyboard that allowed typists to get a ridiculous amound of speed in typing. The flipside was that it was all done through abstract button combinations (hold down ring finger and thumb to type “r” and things like that) so that it took a lot of memorization and skill to use. (can’t find picture or link for it)

Most of the alternative devices never caught on because people just didn’t want to learn how to use something new. It’s a shame that we seem to crave new and improved software all the time, but can’t handle any changes to how we interface with that software. (my girlfriend refuses to use my ergonomic keyboard just because it’s “too slopy”)

Nice article.
It’s so difficult trying to find a good touchscreen laptop.
A lot is talked about it as it’s THE FUTURE! but in reality not a lot of laptop makers are selling really good tablets [that are multitouch and pen].
Well not selling them for long in any case.

The two I’ve seen are the Hp tx2 touchsmart series and the Dell Lattitude xt series.
But it’s only really the xt that is featured enough to be worth the money.

While the humble mouse may be able to shoot the nose-hairs off a joypad user in a FPS, it is sadly lacking for, say, driving games. Lets give a moment of praise for Nintendo, for making what appears to be a genuine effort to innovate in the field of controllers.

The mouse is an evil piece of Human Interface Design. Seemingly made with the sole aim of buggering up the nerves, muscles and tendons of those who use one regularly.

Within ten years touch screen interfaces will be common place – and there won;t be a difficulty moving over. Sure, people are used to a mouse, but direct screen contact is much more intuitive. Also, in this timeframe gesture recognition without touch sensitivity or fancy wands will be on its way. The mouse is on its way out.

The really interesting question is what (if anything) will replace the QWERTY keyboard.

Imagine having your screen in front of you and having to constantly press the screen, I’m sure that would fuck up your arm as well. Maybe the touch screen mouse mat will work well, but I really can’t see how the regular screen being turned into a touch device can be any better in the long run.

Sorry to come across as a bit of an arse, that was not my intention. What I mean however that I can’t possibly see how having a regular PC with a touch screen is in any way better. Tablets are a big improvement over mice, but also a bit clumsy.

>> Bugger touch-displays. Nothing beats tactile feedback
I suspect that our kids, and certainly their kids, will look back on the mice we have nowadays with giggling disbelief.

“So it was connected with a WIRE? And you just dragged in around on your desk?! Really Grandad?!”
“Yes that’s right and our mice even had their own little mats”
“he he, that’s SILLY Grandad”
“Fancy a Wurhters?”
“No thanks. I’ve just put a Nike insta-meal sticker on my arm”
*sigh*

I would like a really squashy mouse. Like rubber on the palm and foam on the fingers, but the fingers are actually analogue triggers with a little give on them. The sponginess of the fingers would actually be the triggers as opposed to tactile noise.

No i honestly just don’t get what you’re implying. That triggers are “buttons” and as such a mouse is a better simulacra of the real life trigger-pulling experience? I’m not sure that line of thinking stands up to much scrutiny.

It comes down to tactile feedback for me, whether its from a button, a responsive surface, a wheel, a rope you pull or whatever, i think the key sensation is that you physically carried out an action and an object changed as a response.

Yes that was what I was implying that a single action, Ie. Clicking a mouse ,which gives a single response in the game , ie firing the gun, is the same as pulling the trigger on a real gun and getting a single response , the gun firing.
Guns don’t have touch pads requiring gestures ect because it gets in the way of the required action, that is firing the gun. I don’t want anything to come in between me and the gun in the game. I don’t want to have make a gesture in the mouse or drive and find the right part of the screen to touch. I like being able to push a mouse, hear the button press, feel it , and know exactly when to hit it again to get a rapid fire action. I’ve used touch screens and touch pads, they are inaccurate and often miss input entirely if you try to do it to quickly. I can’t type for anything on an I-phone because my fingers are to fast and it causes a huge mess of letters to come out instead of the ones I actually pressed. DO NOT WANT On my mouse!
I want my interface to be simple and low tech, something that works every time (unless it is broken for serious) As far as I can click my mouse my gun will fire or the point will click on the screen if I’m playing a point and click game or what have you. Just like I’m sure soldiers what a gun that will fire every time they pull the trigger as reliable as possible so when they’re life is in the line no piece of technology comes between them and survival.

I demand tactile feedback. That is really what it comes down to for me. I can text someone BLINDFOLDED on my old nokia phone with one hand, but writing the most basic shit on an iphone is a total chore. The technology simply doesn’t lend itself well to muscle memory.

If they can offer a tactapad-type interface that will actually provide some physical response to actions, i’ll be intrigued. I want to feel a meaningful impact of some sort.

Frankly though, mice are shit. I’m a tablet user for life, have been for years, and i play games, FPSes, whatever, just wonderfully with my Intuos3.

I think they have missed a real trick here. Never mind building touch sensitivity into a mouse, much simpler to stick an altimeter into it. All of a sudden doing things like flicking your mouse up, or picking it up and rocking it side to side can be used to generate a whole range of additional functions on the desktop or in games.

I’ll leave it to you folks to think of a few, but I’ll start with upward flick to reload, or lift and waggle to copy selected text as examples.

The thing with a touchscreen is that it needs to be quick, responsive and accurate. If there’s even a slight lag between what you’re trying to do on the touchscreen, and the actual action, then it’s all but useless for something requiring any sort of timing and precision, such as an FPS game.

I want buttons that I can press down on that make a really nice clicking sound. It’s all my primitive monkey fingers can understand. I’ve not evolved to the next step of evolution like those superior Apple fans.

Agreed. never understood why driving games don’t have mouse look. in NfS: S , for example, instead of pressing some random button to look at the rear view mirror, why can’t I just flick my mouse a bit to look that way? Which is of course why I only use the gamepad for racing games now.

I feel that there could definitely be a new, better, more awesome, possibly mouse like kind of hand interface device. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mice, especially optical/laser 5 button ones with scroll wheels. It does its job very well. But the feel of the thing… it IS a bit clunky, when you really think about it. Or when you don’t. FEEL IT. It’s clunky. There could be something better…

In as much as mice are a cause of RSI, that aspect of them IS broken and DOES require fixing. Touch screens, however, are not a solution to that problem nor are they directed at that issue at all. They’re messy, imprecise, excessively delicate, smudgy devices that cause far more problem than they solve. Since they’re MORE broken than mice, I say do not fix that which is not broken about mice.

As to QWERTY, that’s a bit of a larger problem. You have generation after generation of trained typist on this layout, changing it creates a lot of problems, even as it attempts to solve the inefficiency factor. I wouldn’t willingly give up my QWERTY keyboard, learning a new one would be far more effort for me than a new layout would save.

Anyone else remember the demo of that big coffee table thing Bill Gates did maybe… 2 years ago? Huge touch screen, you put your digital camera down on top of it, it automatically grabs all the pictures off the camera, put your Zune down it automatically syncs up ala iTunes, so on and so forth… Lots of pushing pictures around with a fingertip, enlarging them with a finger on opposing corners, your standard iPhone stuff really, but the point is that it wasn’t for gaming – not the way we use the term anyway. I believe they did have a card game demoed for the family to play, but it was really supposed to be a family-friendly multimedia fixture for your house, rather than a gaming system. I suspect this is the same deal. Still downloading the video though. So maybe I’m wrong.

i think the key is backwards compatability all upgrades are increasingly backwards compatability dependant, mice have evolved over the years but only in ways that haven’t broken the traditional experience, if you can play starcraft with the new mouse it’ll probably take off.

The only thing I could think of to replace a mouse is a metal interface you can place on your head that allows you to move the mouse and click with your mind. It would have to be very advanced technology through (I know they have so now but I have no idea how they work or if everyone can use them or only certain people can figure it out) But if they made it as natural as moving your hand around and clicking a mouse (IE sending impulses to your hand to do this) I think it could be a very effective replacement and it wouldn't cause any CTS or the line injuries. Could also replace the keyboard if you just had to think the word you want and it put it on the screen, still I think that kind of technology is a long long way off.

I like tactile feedback too, but I ended up ditching my last mouse because the left mouse button became more and more difficult to press. After enough missed shots in TF2 because of it, I had to let it go. Touch interfaces wouldn’t have such problems.